


Living The Dream

by ready_to_kick_some_ass



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Dreams, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I haven't seen the first episode of season six yet, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Reunions, only for the trailers maybe, so no spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ready_to_kick_some_ass/pseuds/ready_to_kick_some_ass
Summary: Two times Fitz and Jemma dream alone and one time they dream together.





	Living The Dream

It’s a warm day in late spring and Jemma feels little beams of sunlight on her face when she wakes up. Her skin prickles pleasantly. She sighs and turns on her side finding Fitz already awake, a smile spreading on his face. His eyes sparkle in the light. They are almost cobalt blue. “Good morning, beautiful,” he says softly.

“Good morning,” Jemma says, chuckling. She kisses the tip of Fitz’s nose and he runs a hand through her hair. She moves closer to him to lean her head against his chest, feeling and hearing his steady heartbeat. It comforts and reassures her. She closes her eyes. Fitz continues to stroke her hair and everything feels perfect.

Time passes. Jemma doesn’t know how much. It doesn’t matter. They can stay like this for forever, right? They don’t have anywhere to go …

But suddenly Fitz takes his hand away and Jemma feels cold. She opens her eyes, looking at Fitz questioningly. She frowns when she sees the sad expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” She asks, feeling a first hint of worry.

_Something’s wrong …_

“It’s time to wake up, Jemma,” Fitz tells her.

Jemma frowns. “But ... I’m already awake,” she says confused.

“You know what I mean,” Fitz says, raising his eyebrows. “There are things to do.”

Jemma exhales shakily. The worry changes into fear. “They can wait. I … I want to stay here.”

“I know. But you have to, Jemma.” And in front of her eyes, Fitz’s face changes. Suddenly, there’s dust in his hair, on his lashes and on his cheeks. Blood on his forehead, dripping onto the pillows. Jemma stares and shivers. “No,” she breathes. “Please …”

She reaches for Fitz, reaches for his hand, but when she looks at it, she sees it’s bloody and full of dust too, some of the fingers sticking out in strange angles. She sobs.

 _No. Please no. I can’t_ -

  
\- Jemma wakes up with the feeling of desperate longing and endless horror in her chest. She blinks up at the ceiling of her bunk and exhales shakily. The conflicting pictures of the dream – happy and light, dark and painful - linger in front of her eyes, while reality is already pulling at her with cold clutches.

She turns around and presses her face into the pillow, breathing heavily.

It’s week three without Fitz.

Jemma thought the pain would lessen. But it didn’t. It just shifted. First, it was numb. A dull ache in her heart. But now it’s a raging white hot fire, consuming her whole being.

Sometimes, when the pain is too much and her hope is slowly vanishing until it’s almost gone, dissolved in the dark of her desperate mind, she wishes she could live inside her dreams … Sure, a lot of them end in nightmares, like that last one did. But in her dreams, she doesn’t _know_ that Fitz is gone. She doesn’t know that she’s going to have to spend another day without him, remembering the moment Mack told her, remembering seeing his body, remembering washing the dust off his white blank face … The memories are like a punch into the guts and she doesn’t want them. She never wanted them.

Jemma reaches for one of Fitz’s jumpers, that lays on the pillow beside her and buries her face in it. She realizes his smell starts to fade and her eyes well up yet again, although she feels like she cried herself empty at least two dozen times in the last few days.

Living in a dream might be self-deluding, but at least it would be merciful …

Not like reality. Reality, which hits her with full force every day.

Fitz died. He’s gone. Nothing can change this and nothing can make it better. Not even the fact, that he’s still out there. Sleeping in deep space, waiting to save them in the future. No. The loss will always be a part of her. A black hole in her heart.

And sometimes, when her thoughts go to the darkest places her mind has to offer, she feels guilty. She pulled Fitz into this life. He just wanted to be an engineer, wanted to work in a lab and build cool things to help people, and still he followed her into a life full of danger and violence and heartbreak. The things he went through … He was destroyed so much, piece by piece – and still he always stood up, he always went on. Until a pile of rubbles crushed his body. And – she knows from Mack – even while dying, he asked for the safety of the people he wanted to protect.

God, she wants to go back to the start …

Jemma is interrupted in her thoughts by a light knock on the door. “Yes,” she calls, wiping her eyes and putting the jumper away. She sits up and Daisy comes into her room. She looks at Jemma with a little smile. “Hey. I wanted to let you know that we think we found Enoch’s ship. We’re close. Shouldn’t take long until we can get on board.”

Jemma feels a spark of careful hope. Maybe … maybe the search is over.

It isn’t.

Just hours later, she kneels in front of the empty cryochamber and stares at the bloody handprint on the glass.

_No._

_No. Please …_

Jemma can’t believe it. Involuntarily, she remembers Fitz’s words. _We’re cursed … The bloody cosmos wants us apart._

Maybe it’s true, she thinks dully. Maybe we’re really cursed.

  
When they boarded Enoch’s ship, they walked right into a battlefield. Shattered glass, some figures laying on the floor, mechanic body parts exposed. Someone attacked them, masked men, carrying big guns. Daisy quickly knocked them out. They found Enoch, who was bound and gagged, but otherwise unharmed. They learned that the attackers were Chronicom Hunters, keen on selling the androids into slavery. “They wanted to have the ship as well,” Enoch explained. “They were accompanied by some aliens who are known as space mercenaries, working for everyone who's willing to pay them.”

Jemma knew it before she asked. She felt it. It was a cold painful certainty in her heart. “Fitz?”

Enoch shook his head. “I apologize, Jemma Simmons. The mercenaries took him since the Chronicom Hunters didn’t see any value in him. However, I managed to wake him up before they came onto the ship and I told them he was capable of repairing their ship, which took great damage in a recent battle, to prevent them from deciding to dispose him. They disappeared with him.” He tilted his head. “I have to admit, that I failed.” He almost sounded sorrowful.  

 

Jemma lays a hand on the chamber and swallows. If they had arrived just a bit sooner … they could have prevented this. Aliens. Mercenaries. Fitz must be so confused and scared. He doesn’t know there’s no one to be saved. Not anymore.

This is a mess, Jemma thinks desperately and leans her head against the cold chamber.

This is a mess and I wish it wasn’t real …

“Hey,” Daisy says behind her, laying a hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “Don’t give up hope. You know Fitz. He’s smart. You heard Enoch. He told the aliens that Fitz can repair their ship. He’s still out there and we’re going to find him, alright? Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” Jemma echoes and nods. “Yes.”

When Daisy is gone to talk to Enoch again, Jemma climbs into the chamber. She lays on her back and stares up at the bloodied glass. This is where Fitz layed down to sleep for 74 years. This is where he slept. This is where he woke up. Where he woke up just to be taken by aliens. She starts to cry again, the tears rolling down the sides of her face.

_Oh Fitz. Where are you now ..._

 

***

 

Fitz is standing on a wide green meadow, surrounded by colourful wildflowers. He can see hills in the distance. The sky is bright blue and there are almost no clouds. He closes his eyes for a moment and inhales the fresh scent of late spring in the highlands.

He’s at peace.

When Fitz opens his eyes again, he sees Jemma, sitting on a blanket in the grass. She’s wearing a lovely yellow dress and her hairs are in a loose ponytail. She smiles at him and his heart fills with so much warmth, it feels like it’s about to burst with his love for her.

He goes to her and

She runs a hand through his hair. “Are you happy, love?”

“Yes,” he breathes, leaning into her touch. “Yes, I am … Are you?”

“I couldn’t be happier.”

“Good. I … Please tell me I can stay this time,” he begs her, not even knowing where these words are coming from. Why shouldn’t he be able to stay with her? They are home … In the distance he can see their cottage. Grey brick stones and garlands of ivy around the windows.

Jemma tilts her head and her eyes fill with something like soft sorrow. “Not yet, Fitz. But soon … I promise.”

A wave of pain rushes through him. “Please … please let me stay now. I can’t … I don’t know how to live without you.”

She cups his face in her hands, her skin soft and warm. “Soon, Fitz. We’re going to be together and we won’t leave each other’s side again, right?”

“Right,” he whispers. He wants to hold her. Wants to hold her close so she won’t disappear. But it already starts. Her hands are getting transparent slowly and he whimpers, his eyes welling up.

He wishes he could stop it, wishes he could -

 

\- The pictures of the dream dissolve slowly as he wakes up.

Fitz sighs and blinks into the void. A good dream. Those are rare.

In these days, he has exactly two kinds of dreams. Either he sees himself hurting Jemma in the most awful ways – he’s shooting her in the head in the Framework or he squeezes her throat while she begs him to stop – or he dreams about them being happy and together somewhere safe and peaceful.

The nature of his dreams remind him of the time he spent in Hale’s prison. Dreaming about Jemma was kind of an escape back then. The only peaceful distraction his mind had to offer. Whenever he was snapped out of them by a loud banging against the door, or the lights being switched on abruptly – which happened to different times of the day or night, especially in the first few weeks. Just another thing they tried to make him talk … -  he desperately tried to cling to the dream images. But after all, they were just illusions and they always faded into nothing.

Just like they do now.

The only difference is, that now he’s dreaming of her on an alien ship somewhere in deep space. It’s just another kind of prison. It seems that since the Framework, he has just been stumbling from one prison into another, never being free, never truly being himself.

Maybe it’s what I deserve after all, he thinks, getting up slowly and reaching for his clothes. There must be some punishment for my sins.  

And oh, he’s ready to pay for what he did, ready to pay for everything he destroyed, but he will never be ready to face a life without Jemma.

What he would give to see her now … To know that she’s safe.  

The hope to see her again is what keeps him alive.

When Enoch woke him up, Fitz was confused and disorientated. Alarms were blaring around them, flashing red light was blinding him as Enoch told him something about an attack. He couldn’t even get out of the chamber before armed men and aliens stormed into the room, grabbing Enoch and binding him. They discovered Fitz a moment later and pulled him out of the chamber. He struggled and managed to break the nose of someone, who screamed in pain and anger and punched Fitz in the face so hard, he saw stars. While he tried to not pass out, he could hear the aliens talking with each other in their own language aggressively. At some point, Enoch talked to them in his calm monotonous voice, but he couldn't understand a word. Eventually, Enoch told him in a hushed voice, "You'll have to blend in for now, good luck. At least they think you're valuable, since I ..."   
Fitz didn’t hear the rest, because he finally passed out.

When he woke up, he was laying on a cot in a messy room. An alien with black eyes and greenish skin stared down at him with a grin, that exposed a few rows of shark-like teeth. “You’re working for us now,” he told Fitz in broken English. “And you’re going to work properly, because if you don’t …” He pulled out some device and pressed a button. Fitz suddenly felt like he was on fire, waves of burning pain rushing through his whole body for a moment that felt like eternity, until the alien took his finger from the button and laughed. He patted Fitz’s shoulder and growled, “Start,” before leaving the room.

Fitz started to examine the state of the ship and found out it was in a desolate state indeed. He began to work. It was the only thing he could do.

That’s his life now apparently. Holding an alien ship together while not knowing where - or _when_ \- he is.  

He finishes dressing himself and rubs his neck, where they apparently implanted the device that can send waves of burning pain through him and keep him obedient. He asks himself if this is part of his task to save Jemma and the others. But it can’t be. Before they were parted, Enoch said he had to wake Fitz up sooner. How is he supposed to get to the future now?

He’s interrupted in his worried thoughts by a loud bang against the door. “Time to work, human filth!” A voice calls harshly in the alien language that’s so familiar by now. Fitz didn’t need long to understand the basic words, but he still has troubles to talk in the foreign language, that involves all kinds of strange clicking sounds.

When he leaves his bunk, the alien gives him an unnecessary push that sends him stumbling against the wall. He rubs his shoulder and ignores the smirk on the alien’s face. He raises his chin and walks towards his workplace.

The Doctor tells him sullenly that they could overtake the ship somehow. It’s not the first time he's suggesting this. But Fitz thinks it would be better to keep his head down for now. To blend in. Until he knows more. About everything. He just hopes, Jemma and the others are alright …

  
Only two weeks later, they come to save him.

Daisy quakes the aliens against the walls, Jemma shoots the one that reaches for Fitz to use him as leverage, preciously and without even blinking.

Fitz stares at them, his mind blank. When he finally opens his mouth for all the questions he has, Jemma hugs him and says his name over and over again, like a breathless mantra, stifled by tears. “Fitz. Fitz, oh Fitz …”

“I wanted to save you,” Fitz tells her, helplessly rubbing her back. “I … Enoch should have woken me up way later, but we were attacked and …”

“I know. I know, Fitz. We … You saved us. We went back to the past and … and we prevented the world from being destroyed,” Jemma says, rubbing her eyes.

Fitz stares at her. Slowly, the pieces of information start to make sense to him. “I did save you in the future. But … Wait. Are there two versions of me now?!” Oh God. This is going to be a bloody mess.

But Jemma looks at him and something in her eyes, something painful and broken, tells him more than words could. There aren’t two versions of him. Not anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Fitz says. She must have been so lonely … He feels anger towards himself. At the same time, he feels a shiver running up and down his spine when he realizes he died, that there’s a body. Maybe even a grave. But he’s here. His legs feel horribly weak all of a sudden. Like jelly.

Jemma smiles weakly. She cups his face in her hands. Her warmth is heavenly. He hasn’t been warm in a long time. “I’m just … I’m so glad to have you back,” she whispers.

Daisy steps closer and lays a hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “We should move,” she says softly.

Fitz looks up at her and smiles, ready to tell Daisy that he missed her, but there’s something in her eyes, that frightens him. She looks at him like she’s seeing a ghost. She almost seems … scared? He frowns.

Daisy sighs and smiles crookedly, but it seems quite forced. “Hey Fitz. It’s good to see you again.” She turns around and walks away slowly, rubbing the back of her head.

Fitz stares after her. He looks at Jemma questioningly. “Why is Daisy looking at me like that? Jemma … what happened? Did I something wrong?”

Jemma bites her lip and looks down. “You … you missed a lot of things. I’m going to tell you everything, alright? As soon as we’re back on the Zephyr, safe and warm.”

“Okay … Uh,” Fitz touches his neck. “You’ll have to remove that thing they implanted in my neck to keep me obedient. I really don’t want to walk around with it longer than necessary.”

A shadow flicks over Jemma’s eyes, as if she remembers something. She nods and reaches for his hand. “Alright. Don’t worry. Come on now, let’s get you home.”

  
Much later, she tells him everything he missed. And when he starts to cry - for Coulson, for Daisy, for himself - she cries with him.

 

***

Jemma’s running. Her lungs are burning and her feet are feeling sore, but she doesn’t stop. Something’s after her. She can feel it.

She’s running, until she stumbles over a stone and falls into rough blue sand. Breathing heavily, she sits up, looking around wide-eyed.

Please … please let it be gone. Let it be –

Jemma whimpers when she can hear slow footsteps approaching her.

You need to get up! A voice inside her tells her. Get up, Jemma!

But she can’t. She’s frozen with fear.

IT is coming closer. She can see IT’s shadow through the blue dust.

_Please, no …_

She can hear IT breathing. Slow and rattling. And when the dust fades, she can see IT.

Jemma gasps. And screams.

IT changed shape again. IT’s no longer an astronaut. Nor is it Ward. IT’s Fitz. But not her Fitz. IT’s the one from the Framework. The Doctor. He stares down at her with cold eyes and points a gun at her head.

“Say it,” he tells her, his voice without any emotion. “You mean nothing to me. Say it!”

“No,” Jemma whispers, her tears wetting the dry sand under her. “No …” I will never say it. Never.

“Say it!”

Jemma stares into the dark barrel of the gun and closes her eyes. “No,” she says again. And waits for the shot, when -

  
  
\- She awakes with a gasp, sitting upright in her bed, bathed in sweat.

“Oh God,” Jemma breathes, staring into the void. She wipes her face with a shaking hand. She blinks repeatedly, willing the still lingering images of Maveth away. Just a dream … it was just a dream. But God, it felt so real …

“Jemma?” Fitz’s asks. He moves beside her, the bedsprings creaking softly. One of his hands reaches for hers and she takes it, the warmth of his skin comfortingly real. “Bad dream?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “Sorry for waking you.”

Fitz exhales shakily. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Oh.” It isn’t the first time he has troubles falling asleep since they have arrived here. Jemma turns on her side to face Fitz and in the dim light the full moon and the stars are throwing into the room, his skin seems almost white. “Well. I don’t feel like I’m going to fall back asleep now,” she mumbles.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Fitz asks, squeezing her hand softly.

Jemma hesitates. “Honestly … I rather would have some distraction.”

“Okay. Uh. What about cuddling on the couch and some hot chocolate?”

Jemma chuckles. “Cuddles and hot chocolate in the middle of the night. Sounds perfect.”

 

Just half an hour later, they are sitting on the couch, huddled together and wrapped into their favourite fuzzy red blanket, each a mug of hot chocolate in front of them.

Outside, it’s slowly getting brighter, as night turns into early morning.

Birds start to sing and somewhere, a dog barks.

Jemma lays her head on Fitz’s shoulder and sighs. This still feels so new … The knowledge that they don’t need to work on something that would help catch a dastardly villain, or help a team member or help to save the world. The knowledge, that they can stay like this for hours, without being disturbed. That even after such nightmares and sleepless nights, they can take their time to help each other recover from it, because there’s no immediate threat lurking in the dark, about to destroy another piece of them.

Sometimes, it seems to good to be true.

But it’s real.

They’re sitting on their couch, in the living room of their cottage in Perthshire.

  
When Jemma told the team they would leave, no one seemed to be really surprised. There were hugs and some tears. There were questions if they would come back sometime. Jemma couldn’t answer them. Her and Fitz found a family with Shield, and she knows don’t want to leave it behind completely, but she also knows, and she feels Fitz thinks the same, that she’s tired of a life full of danger and fear to lose each other …  
“We need time,” she told them, and they said okay. Alright. Take your time. Take all the time you need to heal.

Davis flew the Zephyr to Perthshire, where the cottage was already waiting for them. Fitz was speechless when Jemma showed him Coulson’s letter. There was a key in the envelope. It was Coulson’s final goodbye. His gift for a wedding he won’t be able to attend.  

Jemma and Fitz watched the Zephyr disappearing on the horizon, feeling like a part of their life was ending. Giving way to a new beginning.

  
Now they’re here and it still feels a bit surreal.

But Fitz’s hand in her hair is solid and comforting. “When I couldn’t fall asleep, I thought about the future,” he tells her sometime.

“Yeah? What were you imagining?” Jemma asks him, sipping her hot chocolate. The sweet herb flavour exploding on her tongue makes her moan. It’s delicious, heavenly, and she hopes Fitz will keep making this until the end of their lives.

“I imagined how this cottage would look like, if we had children. Drawn pictures on the fringe and these colourful little alphabet magnets? And Lego on the floor. Books on the table. Stuffed animals – a lot of monkeys, of course – sitting on the couch.”

Jemma’s heart warms up. “Oh Fitz. That’s lovely. Don’t forget the little shoes beside ours. Or the smileys we would draw on the pancakes with maple syrup.”

Fitz hums and takes her hand. “Do you think this could be more than dreams sometime?” He asks and almost sounds shy.

“Of course,” she says and kisses his cheek. “I can already see them playing hide and seek in the garden. Maybe with our dog.”

Fitz smiles and it brightens up his eyes, making them sparkle.

Of course, he knows just as Jemma, that before they can start building a family, they still have a lot of recovery to do. The therapy sessions, the slower life and their efforts to be kinder to themselves are a start. But they still have a long way to go, as this night proves. But it’s alright. They can do it. Together.

“Let’s dream some more,” Fitz tells her and Jemma nods, whispering her visions of their family life into his ear until the sky lights up in a beautiful combination of light blue and pink, as the sun rises to scare the last beam of night-darkness away.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native speaker and always grateful for being corrected! I'm constantly trying to improve my English, so please don't hesitate to tell me about mistakes. <3
> 
> Visit me on tumblr: [ready-to-kick-some-ass](https://ready-to-kick-some-ass.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
